Red Ink
by MyWeirdWorld
Summary: A new district four mentor helplessly watches his tribute die.


So this has been sitting on my computer for 2,5 years now. I'll probably never write this scene in the SYOT, but I really wanted to post it. All you have to know is that Mayon won the games last year, and this is his first time as a mentor of the district four tributes. He's watching the games with Thaddeus, who's from the capitol.

* * *

 **Red Ink**

Her hair spills around her like red ink, creating a red halo around her porcelain white face that looks up at the night sky with longing green eyes. The water around her softly sways her body, as if she's just floating around on a sunny day. But the sun is gone, and so is her pulse, even though it seems like her hands are gently caressing the cold water she is lying in. It would be an illusion for me to still believe I haven't lost her.

I see her all around me, the red ink around her displayed on so many screens in this dark room that I can't escape the reality of the ugly truth in front of my eyes. I hear Jayden on the rocks beside the water scream for her, Sandi's body long forgotten with his hand marks on her neck. But Jayden can't swim, so all he can do is yell her name again and again in the hope that she will answer. But we both know she won't, but the difference is that Jayden still believes in illusions.

I sit there, numb, my fingers coldly gripping the armrest of the leather chair while I breathe. And that's all I can do for now while I let it sink in that I lost her, the girl with whom I watched the sun rise above the sea in our home district. Again, I lost to the Capitol. Again, I lost.

"Mayon?" Thaddeus' rough voice has an edge of caution in it, the same edge of caution he uses when he isn't sure what I'll do. "You alright there?"

I want to tell him I'm fine, but nothing comes out besides an odd, strangled sound and I realize I'm not. I'm not _fine_ when Jayden is screaming for Lily, I'm not _fine_ when my tribute is murdered, I'm not _fine_ when I have to watch and when I know I was the one that was supposed to keep her _alive_.

I look at my hands gripping the armrests of the chair and all I can hear in my head is, _you should've watched out for her._ It's as if I have blood on my hands and I can almost feel it, smell it, dirtying everything. And I know it's the Capitol, the goddamn Capitol that makes us this way, but isn't it _me_ sitting in this chair? Wasn't I the one looking at these screens and sending them sponsored items? I could've done better.

"She's dead, Thaddeus. How can I be alright?" I snap, and no longer able to sit in this chair I stand up with my hands in my hair and look up at the screens. At Lily. "How can I be alright?" I repeat.

Thaddeus follows me with wary eyes and I can see that he's itching to light up a cigarette, but he doesn't. He keeps his hands free, and with that realization comes the knowledge that Thaddeus has been around me for too long. Knows me too well.

"I'm not expecting you to be alright, I'm expecting you to hold it together," he tells me in this strict voice of his. "So sit back down Mayon, pacing a hole in the carpet doesn't change anything."

I stop in front of the screens, pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. But closing them only makes me see blue-gray eyes instead, a pair that had so much fire in them and fills me with such longing it makes me ache. But Lily isn't Jade, but when I hear Jayden yell in the background all I can remember is me holding Jade's dead body until the hovercraft came to pick her up.

Jayden can't even hold Lily, who's floating around in the water like a porcelain doll.

"It isn't fair," I growl. "Why do you get to spend your life with someone you love only because you were born in the right place? Why do we have to die?"

My eyes flash to Thaddeus, who hasn't moved a muscle, but keeps watching me.

"Tell me, why do we," and I point to Jayden on the screen. "have to live in a fucking _nightmare_ for the Capitol's pleasure? Because I don't get it. I know the entire Capitol isn't filled with sadists, but it sure as hell seems like it when I have to watch someone I love _die_ for your sake!"

Thaddeus rises from his chair and towers above me, but I don't step back. "You think I enjoy this? I'm not heartless."

I rub my burning eyes and look at the screens again, see how the cameras show new angles of Lily and the red ink that is her hair and I can't take it. I can't take the pure _pleasure_ the Capitol seems to take from her death.

So I curl my hand into a fist and smash it through the screen that is closest to me. And all I can hear in my head is the question as to why? Why do we have to die when they get to live?

I want to smash another screen, want to hear the glorious sound of glass shattering around me, but I never get the chance. Thaddeus wraps his hands around my wrists, like iron shackles they won't let me move, and my hands are stuck. But there's this burning rage stuck in my chest, clawing its way out and I kick and fight and scream for Thaddeus to get his hands off of me.

"You never had to watch them die!" I scream. "You weren't there, you people were safe in your homes and safe on your couches and I was the one with the blood on my hands. I was the one that saw how every child was slaughtered for your entertainment. I got to know them. I got to love her. How can you ask me to be _alright_ after that hell?"

But he doesn't answer, only pushes me down to the ground so he can take a better hold of me. I cease my fighting and stare at the screens with numb eyes instead, where Jayden has finally realized Lily wasn't going to answer. He now sits on his knees beside the water, one hand unawarely caressing it the way Lily does. He looks like a man with a broken heart.


End file.
